“Assignment: China” – Screening

It was 1979. The U.S. and China had just established diplomatic relations. For the first time since the Communist revolution in 1949, the Chinese government allowed American journalists to be based in Beijing. ASSIGNMENT: CHINA is their story.

Based on extensive interviews with virtually all the pioneering reporters who opened the first U.S. news bureaus in the Peoples Republic — including Fox Butterfield, Jay and Linda Mathews, Richard Bernstein, Frank Ching, Melinda Liu, Jim Laurie, John Roderick, and many others — the documentary also contains interviews with Chinese officials who sought to manage the Western media, people the reporters covered, as well as rare archival footage, still photos and previously unseen home videos.

Join Mike Chinoy the film’s director and narrator, for a screening at the Polish embassy, followed by a panel discussion with Melinda Liu of Newsweek/The Daily Beast who opened the Newsweek bureau in Beijing, Jaime FlorCruz, CNN’s Beijing Bureau Chief who worked for Time and Newsweek in the 1980s, and Liu Heung-shing, who was a photographer for the AP and Time when both organizations first opened bureaus in Beijing.

DATE: Nov 14, 2011 (Monday)TIME: 6:00-8:00pmVENUE: Embassy of the Republic of Poland, 1 Ritan Road, Jian Guo Men Wai (corner of Guanghua Road and Ritan Road) 建国门外日坛路1号ENTRANCE: free to FCCC members, 80 RMB on the door to non-membersREGISTRATION: email fcccadmin@gmail.com for security clearance
Please bring your passport or photo ID!
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER:
Mike Chinoy is CNN’s former Beijing Bureau Chief and currently a Senior Fellow at the U.S.-China Institute at the University of Southern California. The hour-long film is one episode of a multi-part documentary series on the history of American correspondents in China dating back to the 1940s.